Archive Dump Vol. 1
To keep it a buck, this week I don’t have anything fresh and new to share. Creatives need a break from time to time. So, honestly this past week, I didn’t shoot any photos or edit any backlog of photos that haven’t been worked on yet. But, I still do want to put out some sort of content for anyone that reads this and I still want to be able to be as consistent as possible with a weekly post.
For this week’s post, I wanted to share some of my favorite photos I have taken over the years. This will be the first installment of what I will call “Archive Dump”. The intent of doing these posts is to reflect on my previous work and to see how I have improved and honed my skills over time. I know I may not have the same eye and vision as to what everybody may consider aesthetically pleasing to them. I solely shoot for myself and want to share it. If it strikes anybody, thats just a bonus to me. But, until I gain the confidence in my work and take the plunge to do paid work, everything is shot in my vision to my liking. Now, lets get to the pictures.
Lens: XC 18mm-55mm. Location: North Shore, Oahu, HI.
This first picture holds a very, very important and soft spot to me. The time I snapped this shot, I had just bought my camera a month before and was still learning how to use it. I even shot this with the original kit lens that came with the camera; which by all means I am not shitting on or talking down zoom kit lenses. My girlfriend and I had a trip to Hawaii for a wedding and I bought my camera because I really wanted to capture the trip and hoped it would restart my passion and interest in photography again. But, once I knew I was headed to Hawaii, I just kept envisioning this exact photo. The whole month before the trip, all I could think of was wanting to capture a photo of an older local just chilling and fishing in the ocean. Sure enough, my girlfriend and I drove up to the North Shore and as we headed over to the beach, I was able to capture this moment. I swear, I probably spent a good five minutes behind this guy and snapped so many versions of this shot. Looking at the photo, honestly there is not much going on. But, just something about it speaks so much to me. Lastly, this is the photo that I taught myself how to start editing and doing post production on my photos. I used to be the type that would NEVER edit, brush up, or color correct my photos. But this one right here was my gateway to my art.
Lens: XF 35mm, F/2.0. Location: San Diego, CA.
Now, a lot of you are probably looking at this one and wondering “WTF is this supposed to even be, what is the subject of this?” Sometimes, there are photos that won’t have a concrete defined subject, and you just want to capture different elements that speak to you. Well, this is what that photo is to me. In photography, we have a compositional technique called “leading lines”. This technique is served as a guide to lead the viewer’s eyes to the main subject of the photo, and is considered as a “fundamental rule”. As I mention all the time, I think some rules are meant to be broken or twisted in unconventional ways. In a lot of my work, you will notice that I do like to incorporate lines. What I enjoy so much about this photo is my use of lines, colors, and shadows. I really love the fading gradient of light into complete darkness. Also, it is repeating throughout the entire image. The lines and light in this photo are just *Chef’s Kiss* to me.
Lens: XF35mm, F/2.0. Location: Conservatory of Flowers, San Francisco, CA.
This one, I love so much because of the colors, details, and the framing. Shoutout to my lovely and beautiful girlfriend for always being my personal model, subject, and forever muse in all my photos. This photo is a prime example and representation of my main style of shooting. That said, defining one’s shooting style is subjective. One may consider it as one style but the shooter may consider it as another. But, to me this photo is a mix of my two styles: Street and Portraits. To get even more technical, there is a whole sub-genre in the Street Photography umbrella known as “Street Portraits”. I could go on and on about the technicalities between the two; which I probably will create a post on its own. Long story short, this is a mix of elements of both Street and Portrait because this was shot in a public location and is completely candid. BUT, this is giving off the vibe of a posed photo. The way I achieve this style photo, I just tell my subject to just act natural and pretend I’m not even there and I will just snap away at a distance.
Lens: TTartisan 25mm, F/2.0. Location: Sorry Mom, Oakland, CA.
I will make this one the last one for this first installment, because I feel this is too long of a read at this point. I really enjoy the tonality of color in this picture. Also, the subject matter of this photo is all over the place! You have a tattoo chair, a Christmas tree, a dual tape player, a sink, an office desk, and so much more. This is such a fun photo to look at (at least in my eyes). Every time I look at it, it always gives a different vibe to it. I also just happened to have my star burst filter attached to my lens this day, thus the cool star bursting effect from the light. One would think I color graded and filtered this photo to be all pink, but nope! Who would’ve thought this would’ve resulted from a waiting area in a tattoo shop waiting to get a Jollibee tattoo? Not me.
I apologize again for this being such a long read. I thank you all that have made it this far to read it. I really hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this out and reflecting on my older work. This is just the first installment and I have TONS more stuff I have worked on and never shared. So, I hope you stay tuned to see more of my work. ‘Til the next one.